


The Canticle of Heralds: Champions of the Undeserving

by fiendfall



Series: Seven Heralds AU [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, also warning for probable inaccuracies, basically an imagined canticle for the chant of light, because i have nothing better to do clearly, everything is fake!, fake chant of light verses, fake scholarship, fake translation, i'm always up to discuss dragon age lore, pls feel free to point them out btw, seven heralds au, slight AU, warning for garbled old orlesian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 01:53:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5187674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiendfall/pseuds/fiendfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the world fell into sin and the Second Blight struck, Andraste begged the Maker to save Thedas. He would give His strength to our aid, if only she could find seven warriors worthy to serve in His name. These became her Heralds.</p><p> </p><p>An imagined canticle for the Chant of Light. Plus fake scholarship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Canticle of Heralds: Champions of the Undeserving

* * *

 

This canticle is one of the more recent additions to the Chant, believed to have been composed between 3:30-40 Towers by Mother Eulalie at the Montsimmard chantry after the end of the Second Blight. It was added to the official canon of the Chant of Light at the Conclave of Val Royeaux in 3:76 Towers as a reaction to the dissonance between the Chantry of Orlais and that in Tevinter, intending to unite the two by drawing on a shared cultural history. Despite the popularity of the story throughout Thedas, it was not enough to stop the Schism of 3:87; however to this day the Tevinter Chantry recognises the authority of the Heralds. Although the canticle itself is clearly the work of a single author, it drew on a rich story tradition as the Cult of the Heralds had become increasingly famous since the rise of the Heralds in the Second Blight. Many tales of the Heralds were written, though mostly for popular consumption rather than religious ideals, for which reason it is believed Mother Eulalie deliberately accentuated the Andrastrian aspects of the tale. The canticle is also far harsher in its judgement of the people of Thedas than its companions, and has an almost didactic tone at times; yet it stresses Andraste’s unwavering love for even the least deserving.

The manuscript in which this canticle survives, rescued from Montsimmard during the Third Blight, opens with a prologue lamenting the sinful behaviour at the time, which many hardline Andrastrians believed had caused the Blight to return. Also included in the manuscript is an epic poem of 5,000 lines detailing the heroics of the first Heralds in the Second Blight. Its focus on storytelling and chivalry over religious insight, as well as the style in which it is told, suggests that it was merely copied down and not composed by Mother Eulalie. Directly after what later became the Canticle of Heralds, the Mother Eulalie has originated 777 lines of religious poetry, split into seven parts with seven stanzas of seven septameter lines, extolling the virtues of the Maker. It is generally considered to be extremely contrived, not particularly insightful nor well-written. While it seems that this praise poetry may have been her intended masterpiece, very few scholars have the patience to study such a dry and challenging text, and it has fallen out of circulation, eclipsed by the earlier parts of the manuscript.

This version was translated into the King’s Tongue from the Old Orlesian by Divine Theodosia II, with translator’s notes. It is rather controversial, due to Divine Theodosia being the only divine in history to end her reign before her death, as she was removed from her position after violating her vow of chastity. Although several other versions have been written, none have been named Chantry canon.

 

* * *

 

**HERALDS 1** [ **1**]

**Darkness in the hearts of men**

(1) The world reigned empty,

Our Lady risen to the Maker, called to His side,

Both bride and champion[ **2**] as one.

 

(2) The dark betrayal of the Prophet

That black and poisnous act

Stained all peoples foul and base;

We were not worthy[ **3**] of the Maker’s gaze.

 

**The Blight**

(3) From this deep dark a greater shadow came,

Unfurled[ **4**] thick over land, spat from the earth itself.

A vile contagion, a plague, a Blight,

It ravaged our world;

None could stand in its path.

 

(4) The earth split and skies screamed,

With darkness our doors were beset.

We did not deserve the mercy of our Maker,

Nor Andraste our defender.

 

**Andraste the healer**

(5) For we, sick in our souls,

Rejected her love, turned from the blessed healer[ **5**]

Whose hands held a sweet cure

Clasped safe in love and faith,

And preferred the wound to fester, the poison to blacken,

Embraced not the Maker

But wickedness and vice.

 

(6) But Andraste, in her holy light and glory

Begged clemency of the Maker

That we might be saved despite our many wrongs.

She would see the world at peace

For sinner and saint alike.

 

 

**HERALDS 2**

**The plea of Andraste**

(7) Thus spoke Our Lady:

O if there be any worthy among

The people of the world,

If any deserve Your love and mercy O Maker, 

Grant that I may seek them out, 

Grant that I may bring them before Your gaze,

Grant that they may be given strength

And let them be my Heralds.[ **6**]

 

(8) Let it be so

That they may with blessed blades and holy hearts

Rid the world of this cancor,

That they may protect the weak and the righteous,

Nay, even the undeserving,

For all walk within Your light and love

And all men carry You within their hearts,

Even those who do not yet know it.

 

(9) Moved was the Maker by the love of Our Lady,

And out He sent her from His side to seek

Seven worthy soldiers, seven holy Heralds

Who might raise his banner in the heat of battle[ **7**]

And drive this darkness from the land.

 

**The search for the righteous**

(10) Our Lady gazed into the hearts and souls of all,

Read our dreams and hopes, read our guilt,

A rancid fruit in high abundance.

 

(11) She studied us,

We of rotten stock,

And though a lesser soul might have despaired

Of ever finding even so much as one worthy creature

Among so many droves of demons,

Not she. She did not lose faith.[ **8**]

 

(12) Andraste was guided by her love –

As should be all who live in the light of the Maker –

And thus she found just as she had said:

Seven warriors of skill and honour,

Of virtue and faith.

These were the worthy, these she chose to be

Her knights.[ **9**]

 

**HERALDS 3**

**The purge of the Blight**

(13) These Heralds, high-hearted and true-spirited,

Girded with the blessing of Our Lady,

Stepped forth in the name of the Maker,

A bright beacon in the face of the evil rooted in our lands.

 

(14) With holy hands they cleansed the land, 

Purged the blackness from within,[ **10**]

Drove the hordes of shadowy creatures –

Vile monsters begotten in the dark,

Spawned of the earth and feeding on evil – 

Back to the depths of darkness,

Shadowy black[ **11**] where they belong.

 

**A new beginning**

(15) And thus these Our Lady’s Heralds

Rid the land of its foul contagion

And began a new era of light and love.

Champions of the faith,

Protectors of both the righteous and the just,

And even also those dark at heart

Who Andraste yet loves and sees worthy.

 

(16) Evil and darkness are not so easily vanquished,

For shadows ever flicker

In the deep, in our hearts.

Yet Andraste sees our worth, believes us deserving of protection,[ **12**]

And thus when such a Blight unsheathes once more,

A spreading poison throughout the land,

She turns again to our hearts and minds,

Sees our innermost thoughts, deepest secrets,

In her search for the virtuous and the worthy.

 

(17) And as darkness draws in

So she sends out her Heralds

Strong at arm and valorous of heart

To stand against evil

In the name of the Maker and of His bride.

 

(18) Seven holy Heralds,

Worthy of the Maker’s love,

Even as we, undeserving,

Languish in our wickedness.

Thus we too are saved.

* * *

 

 **1** All verse breaks and headings are editorial, added at the Conclave of Val Royeaux, and do not appear in the original manuscript. Mother Eulalie never expected her work to become part of the Chant of Light, and thus did not structure her poem in the style of the canticles. [return to text]

 **2** _Cenait_ ;. This word has both connotations of ‘warrior, soldier, defender’, and ‘advocate, patron, supporter’.[return to text]

 **3** The Canticle of Heralds shows a preoccupation with worthiness that is specific to this text. While other religious texts of the time also linked the appearance of the Second Blight to what they perceived to be the inherent sinfulness of the age following the death of Andraste, as well as humanity’s need to atone for the betrayal of Maferath, this obsession with deservedness and worth is not something that appears in other contemporary religious writings. [return to text]

 **4** _Chourouffe_ , an onomatopoeia that literally translates to ‘dragon-flaps’, meaning the sound a dragon’s wings makes as it flies. Comes to have the meaning ‘outstretched’.[return to text]

 **5** A popular trend in religious writing at this time was to portray Andraste as a healer. Originally intended to celebrate spiritual healing over the magical, it nevertheless led to several heretical depictions of Andraste as a mage, and it fell out of fashion. [return to text]

 **6** _Lylavian_ , a word with both connotations of ‘announcer, crier’, perhaps even ‘prophet’, and ‘chosen warrior’.[return to text]

 **7** The image of raising a banner is taken directly from the relationship between lord and chevalier at this time. Later in the Towers Age, and indeed continuing into the Black Age, this relationship became highly explored in literature. Mother Eulalie was among the first to compare this relationship to that of man and Maker, and the popularity of the Heralds tale soon meant this became a trope of secular literature, although traditional religious texts shunned the idea of such an earthly comparison. [return to text]

 **8** Drawing on popular quest tale tropes, where the hero is given a divine purpose that cannot be fulfilled until all seems lost, at which point it is their faith and determination that allows them to triumph. [return to text]

 **9** _Vainoncharies_ , literally: ‘shield-bearers’, often translated as ‘thegns’, ‘liegemen’, or, due to the tradition of painting your lord’s colours on a knight’s shield, ‘banner-bearers’. The Canticle of Heralds uses an odd mixture of chivalric Orlseian terms, just coming into fashion, and old heroic terms. There was a mass revival of this style in the Towers Age due to the popularity of the Canticle of Andraste, which is an original Alamarri poem in the heroic style.[return to text]

 **10** Speaking in allegory here: is Mother Eulalie referring to the darkspawn, or to the sin within humankind? [return to text]

 **11** Here Mother Eulalie uses an Orlesian version of the old Dwarven word _akenera_ , which literally means ‘shadow in the dark’; it was a popular term to describe the Deep Roads at the time, and Eulalie may not have even realised it was a loan-word.[return to text]

 **12** This word, _guarteliché_ , describes an intense, loving desire to protect at all costs, often used of parents and lovers. Its exact opposite ( _unguarteliché_ ) is often used of Maferath at the point he betrays Andraste.[return to text]


End file.
